{"id":968,"date":"2013-01-04T13:17:03","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T13:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=968"},"modified":"2013-01-04T13:17:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T13:17:03","slug":"international-engineering-magazine-publishes-information-on-forensic-engineering-in-eastern-canada-and-also-information-useful-to-counsel-on-the-causes-of-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/04\/international-engineering-magazine-publishes-information-on-forensic-engineering-in-eastern-canada-and-also-information-useful-to-counsel-on-the-causes-of-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"International engineering magazine publishes information on forensic engineering in eastern Canada &#8211; and also information useful to Counsel on the causes of failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>International report on forensic engineering practice in eastern Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Built Expressions&#8221;, is an\u00a0engineering magazine published monthly with a readership of about 10,000 engineers and architects in Asia, the U.K, and the U.S.\u00a0 The magazine published\u00a0three of my blog postings last year (Ref. 15, pg. 74 to 80):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is forensic engineering?<\/li>\n<li>Steps in the forensic engineering investigative process<\/li>\n<li>Writing forensice engineering reports<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My articles reflected what I have experienced practicing forensic engineering in eastern Canada.\u00a0 Requests to publish these articles in the magazine suggests to me that we have a standard of practice in forensic engineering in eastern Canada of interest to the world.<\/p>\n<p>(These postings and their publication dates are contained in the <strong>References <\/strong>below.\u00a0 The References\u00a0list\u00a012\u00a0postings\u00a0forming a series I published last year\u00a0for counsel.\u00a0 The series was on the role of a professional engineer assisting Counsel at the\u00a0different stages of the civil litigation process)<\/p>\n<p>These three articles were included in the December 2012 issue of Built Expressions that featured\u00a0several articles on &#8216;Forensic Civil Engineering&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>(Please contact me if you would like to\u00a0review an electronic\u00a0version\u00a0of the magazine, or contact the publisher (Ref. 15).\u00a0The file containing the\u00a0magazine is\u00a0quite large at 14.8 MB and not included in this posting for that reason)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Learning from others about the cause of failures in the built environment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But we can learn from the others as well.\u00a0 There were\u00a0nine articles in the Cover Feature including my three articles.\u00a0 The articles described various aspects of forensic civil engineering as experienced by the authors.\u00a0 Most of the articles would be of interest to forensic engineers.\u00a0\u00a0One or two\u00a0would be of interest to Counsel.<\/p>\n<p>One article in the magazine, &#8216;The expert witness and professional ethics&#8217;, (Ref. 15, Rao, B.S.C., pg. 38), reports on the categorizing and classifying of the causes of\u00a0structural failure as determined by researchers in the U.S. and Europe.\u00a0 This research reviewed the causes of hundreds of failures.\u00a0 Based on the research the primary causes of failure\u00a0were categorized as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Human failure<\/li>\n<li>Design failure<\/li>\n<li>Material failure<\/li>\n<li>Extreme or unforseen conditions or environments<\/li>\n<li>Combinations of the above<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When professional engineers were at fault (human failure) the causes of failure could be classified as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>36%&#8230;Insufficient knowledge on the part of the engineer<\/li>\n<li>16%&#8230;Under estimation of influence<\/li>\n<li>14%&#8230;Ignorance, carelessness, negligence<\/li>\n<li>13%&#8230;Forgetfulness, error<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 9%&#8230;Relying on others without sufficient control<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 7%&#8230;Objectively unknown situation<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 1%&#8230;Imprecise definition of responsibilites<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a01%&#8230;Choice of bad quality<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 3%&#8230;Other<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When the\u00a0percentage distribution of the failures were summarized\u00a0the research found that\u00a0almost half\u00a0were due to errors in the planning and design of a structure and a third occurred during construction:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>43%&#8230;Planning and design<\/li>\n<li>36%&#8230;Construction<\/li>\n<li>16%&#8230;Use and maintenance<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 7%&#8230;Others and multiple factors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I reviewed research a few years ago that found many, possibly most, foundation failures were due to inadequate geotechnical investigation of the foundation soils.<\/p>\n<p>This type of information based on what appears to be quite exhaustive research is valuable to a forensic engineer in forming an initial hypothesis of failure at the beginning of an investigation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Counsel can also learn from engineering research<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The information is also valuable to\u00a0Counsel in assessing whether or not to take a case or gaining an appreciation of where a\u00a0forensic investigation may be leading based on initial oral reports by the professional engineer investigating the cause of the failure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What is <strong>forensic engineering<\/strong>?, published, November 20, 2012<\/li>\n<li>Writing <strong>forensic engineering reports<\/strong>, published, November 6, 2012<\/li>\n<li>Steps in the <strong>civil litigation process<\/strong>, published, August 28, 2012<\/li>\n<li>Steps in the <strong>forensic engineering investigative process<\/strong>, published October 26, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer in <strong>counsel&#8217;s decision to take a case<\/strong>, published June 26, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare a <strong>Notice of Claim<\/strong>, published July 26, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare a <strong>Statement of Claim<\/strong>, published September 11, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare a <strong>Statement of Defence<\/strong>, published September 26, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare an <strong>Affidavit of Documents<\/strong>, published October 4, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel during <strong>Discovery<\/strong>, published October 16, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel during <strong>Alternate Dispute Resolutionn (ADR)<\/strong>, published November 16, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare for a <strong>Settlement Conference<\/strong>, published November 29, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare for a <strong>Trial Date Assignment Conference<\/strong>, published December 12, 2012<\/li>\n<li>The role of a professional engineer assisting counsel prepare for <strong>Trial<\/strong>, published, December 19, 2012<\/li>\n<li>Built Expressions, Vol. 1, Issue 12, December 2012, Argus Media PVT Ltd., Bangalore, E: <a href=\"mailto:info@builtexpressions.com\">info@builtexpressions.com<\/a>, <a href=\"mailto:info@argusmediaindia.com\">info@argusmediaindia.com<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>International report on forensic engineering practice in eastern Canada &#8220;Built Expressions&#8221;, is an\u00a0engineering magazine published monthly with a readership of about 10,000 engineers and architects in Asia, the U.K, and the U.S.\u00a0 The magazine published\u00a0three of my blog postings last &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/04\/international-engineering-magazine-publishes-information-on-forensic-engineering-in-eastern-canada-and-also-information-useful-to-counsel-on-the-causes-of-failure\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7113,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/7113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}